BankNews

Internal Efficiency Improves Customer Service

By: Ria Romano

Initially the IT division was on a theoretical ‘25th floor’ and everyone was taking the stairs,” says Garry Petzold, the chief IT officer at First State of Altus, Okla. “To better serve our customer base, while also meeting the needs of our bank’s technology infrastructure, I started researching solutions that would automate business processes and improve workflow to give my team the tools we needed to keep the bank on the cutting edge.”

In July 2005, Petzold joined the IT team at FSBA (two locations, 50 employees and $125 million in assets) and quickly found many of the bank’s IT processes had not been kept up-to-date. They were being completed in a minimally beneficial manner because “that is the way it had always been done.” As Petzold states, “Banks are process-oriented institutions and therefore there is tremendous value in technology tools that provide automated functions.”

However, FSBA had been relying heavily on batch files for the most basic tasks. In the absence of batch files, there were numerous pages of step-by-step instructions throughout the bank — which were a security risk if viewed by unauthorized personnel. Many personnel also were allowed access to bank websites, network shares and critical systems in order to manually perform processes.

In other instances, FSBA simply didn’t have the technology in place to help improve staff productivity. All key personnel have back-ups to provide business process continuity in the event of scheduled or unscheduled absence of the primary employee. The back-up personnel understood the general concept of the individual process but not the precise steps, timing or exact implementation method. Upon the pending absence of a key staff member, the back-up staff member would spend three days reviewing the schedule and steps needed to perform and two days actually performing the tasks. This would result in delays in performance of duties for both the primary and back-up staff members. Even worse, in the event an error occurred, the back-up personnel would spend several hours trying to find errors and then attempt to re-run the process correctly.

“I knew there had to be a change,” says Petzold. “And the catalyst for seeking other options came during my two-week vacation I had scheduled in July 2006. During this time I had to physically return to FSBA offices 12 out of the 16 days of my vacation to fix IT problems,” he says.

Petzold and his team chose MJT Net’s Macro Scheduler Pro because it allowed unrestricted compilation and distribution, had the ability to check incoming emails for keywords and could easily harvest predefined criteria and use that information to trigger specific tasks. The solution’s Webrecorder also allows Petzold to directly interact — and not just control — Internet Explorer. He found this helpful as an increasing number of bank systems require Internet access and processing.

FSBA’s core system UI is via telnet and Macro Scheduler Pro had a powerful telnet feature allowing for control. The solution’s image recognition is a powerful function that steps up to continue/complete/verify tasks. The tool has the ability to compile any process into its own application allowing for ultimate portability/deployment/security of macros.

“Deploying our chosen solution for Windows automation software has greatly enhanced security, improved work flow, reduced reliance on external IT back-up organizations (from 30 hours per year to two hours annually), eliminated the need to hire an additional IT staff member (savings of $50,000 annually) and had several specific direct benefits,” says Petzold.
 
By automating FSBA business processes and substantially reducing tasks performed by humans the bank reduced ATM over-withdrawals $1,000 to $2,000 per month and curtailed fraud associated with a non-live ATM system, saved approximately $100 to $300 per key person per scheduled vacation, eliminated security camera failure and prevented duplicate file import. Being able to check the mail server for keywords and the Internet banking system and bill pay system every hour during business hours has resulted in a dramatic increase in customer satisfaction.

“FSBA executives know that excellent customer service in the banking industry — no matter the size of the institution — is directly related to internal process efficiencies,” Petzold concludes. “Although we are a small regional bank, we have been solidly committed to the people of Oklahoma for almost 100 years and through the adoption of new technology, we’ll only continue to improve through the next 100.”

Ria Romano is a freelance writer based in Boca Raton, Fla.

Copyright © May 2008 BankNews Publications

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